Danger on Peaks (4 page)

Sand Ridge

III

Daily Life

W
HAT TO
T
ELL
, S
TILL

Reading the galley pages of Laughlin's
Collected Poems

with an eye to writing a comment.

How warmly J speaks of Pound,

At twenty-three I sat in a lookout cabin in gray whipping wind

at the north end of the northern Cascades,

high above rocks and ice, wondering

And studied Chinese in Berkeley, went to Japan instead.

J puts his love for women

his love for love, his devotion, his pain, his causing-of-pain,

I'm 63 now & I'm on my way to pick up my ten-year-old

stepdaughter

I just finished a five-page letter to the County Supervisors

dealing with a former supervisor,

who has twisted the facts and gets paid for his lies. Do I

have to deal with this creep? I do.

James Laughlin's manuscript sitting on my desk.

Late last night reading his clear poems —

and Burt Watson's volume of translations of Su Shih,

September heat.

The Watershed Institute meets,

And we have visitors from China, Forestry guys,

Editorials in the paper are against us,

I think of how J writes stories of his lovers in his poems —

So recklessly bold — foolish? —

to write so much about your lovers

when you're a long-time married man. Then I think,

what do I know?

S
TRONG
S
PIRIT

Working on hosting Ko Un great Korean poet.

I was sitting on the floor this morning in the dark

At the Motel Eco, with my steel cup full of latte from the Roma

calendar template sketched in pencil:

student lunches, field trips in the Central Valley

waterfowl? Cold Canyon? State Library with Kevin Starr?

Charlie wants to help with speakers money so he gave us some

a cultural visitor for a week at Aggie Davis

in the flat plain valley just by Putah Creek,

which was re-routed by engineers a hundred years ago.

I'm on the phone and on the e-mail working all this out

students and poets to gather at the Cafe California

the Korean graduate student too

His field is Nineteenth Century Lit and he's probably a Christian,

but says he'll do this. Delfina, wife of Pak, a Korean Catholic,

looks distasteful at the book and says

Ko Un's a Buddhist! — I don't think she'll come to the reading.

Drive the car through a car wash — get Sierra mud off,

about to meet him at the airport, his strong wife Sang-wha

with him in flight from Seoul.

First drive to Albany and pick up Clare Yoh,

Korean Studies at Berkeley, lives near an

old style eucalyptus grove, the smell surprised me

when I visited California as a kid — I like it still.

Down to the airport meet at Customs

and now to pay respects to our friend

poet, translator, Ok-ku died last fall

her grave on the ridgetop near the sea.

Straight up a hill due west

walk a grassy knoll in the wind,

Ko Un pouring a careful trickle of
soju
on her mound,

us bowing deep bows

— spirits for the spirit, bright poet gone

then pass the cup among the living —

strong.

S
HARING AN
O
YSTER WITH THE
C
APTAIN

“On June 17, 1579, Captain Francis Drake sailed his ship, The Golden Hinde, into the gulf of the Farallones of the bay that now bears his name. He sighted these white cliffs and named the land Nova Albion. During his 36 day encampment in California, Drake repaired his ship, established contact with local Indians, explored inland, took on supplies and water, and claimed the region for Queen Elizabeth.”

Along the roadside yarrow, scotch broom, forbs,

hills of layered angled boughs like an Edo woodcut,

rare tree — bishop pine — storm-tuned,

blacktop roadbed over the native Miwok path

over the early ranches “M” and “Pierce”

wind-trimmed chaparral and

estuary salt marsh, leaning hills,

technically off the continent,

out on the sea-plate, “floating island.”

— Came down from inland granite and

gold-bearing hills           madrone and cedar;

& from ag-fields laser land-levelers,

giant excavators — subdivision engineers

“California” hid behind the coastal wall of fog

Drake saw a glimpse of brown dry grass and gray-green pine,

came into a curve of beach. Rowed ashore,

left a scat along the tideline, cut some letters in an oak.

The “G” Ranch running Herefords,

Charley Johnson growing oysters

using a clever method from Japan,

and behind the fog wall

sunny grassy hills and swales

filled with ducks and tules.

Cruising down the narrow road-ridge

one thing we have together yet:

this Inglis — this Mericano tongue.

— Drake's Bay cliffs like Sussex —

gray and yellow siltstone, mudstone, sandstone,

undulating cliffs and valleys — days of miles of fog.

Gray-mottled bench boards lichen.

Sea gulls flat down sun-warmed

parking lot by cars.

We offer to the land and sea,

a sierra-cup of Gallo sherry,

and eat a Johnson's oyster from the jar,

offer a sip of Sack to the Captain

and
an oyster raw:

a salute, a toast to Sir Francis Drake

from the land he never saw.

S
UMMER OF
'97

Earth spirit please don't mind

If cement trucks grind

And plant spirits wait a while

Please come back and smile

Ditches, lines and drains

Forms and pours and hidden doors

The house begins:

Sun for power

Cedar for siding

Fresh skinned poles for framing

Gravel for crunching and

Bollingen for bucks —

Daniel peeling

Moth for singing

Matt for pounding

Bruce for pondering

Chuck for plumbering

David drywalling

Stu for drain rock

Kurt for hot wire

Gary for cold beer

Carole for brave laugh

Gen for painting

Garden cucumbers for lunch

Fresh tomatoes crunch

Tor for indoor paints and grins

Ted for rooftiles

Tarpaper curls

Sawdust swirls

Trucks for hauling

Barrels for burning

Old bedrooms disappearing

Wild turkeys watching

Deer disdainful

Bullfrogs croaking,

David Parmenter for bringing

Though his mill burned down

He's still coming round.

Cyndra tracing manzanita

On the tile wall shower,

Sliding doors

Smooth new floors —

Old house a big hall now

Big as a stable

To bang the mead-stein on the table

Robin got a room to write a poem,

& no more nights out walking to the john.

Carole finally coming home

Peeking at her many rooms.

Oak and pine trees looking on

Old Kitkitdizze house now

Has another wing —

So we'll pour a glass and sing —

This has been fun as heaven

Summer of ninety-seven.

R
EALLY THE
R
EAL

for Ko Un and Lee Sang-wha

Heading south down the freeway making the switch

from Business 80 east to the 1-5 south,

watch those signs and lanes that split

duck behind the trucks, all going 75 at 10 am

I tell Ko Un this is the road that runs from Mexico to Canada, right past

San Diego — LA — Sacramento — Medford — Portland — Centralia —

Seattle — Bellingham, B.C. all the way,

the new suburban projects with cement roof tiles

neatly piled on unfinished gables,

turn onto Twin Cities Road, then Franklin Road

pull in by the sweet little almost-wild Cosumnes River

right where the Mokulumne meets it,

(
umne
a Miwok suffix meaning river)

walking out on a levee trail through cattail, tule, button-brush,

small valley oaks, algae on the streams. Hardly any birds.

Lost Slough, across the road, out on the boardwalk

— can't see much, the tules all too tall. The freeway roar,

four sandhill cranes feeding, necks down, pacing slow.

Then west on Twin Cities Road til we hit the river.

Into Locke, park, walk the crowded Second Street

all the tippy buildings' second stories leaning out,

gleaming bikes — huge BMW with exotic control panel

eat at the Locke Gardens Chinese place, Ko Un's choice,

endless tape loop some dumb music, at the next table one white couple,

a guy with a beard; at another a single black woman

with two little round headed clearly super-sharp boys.

Out and down to Walnut Grove til we find road J-11 going east

over a slough or two then south on Staten Island Road. It's straight,

the fields all flat and lots of signs that say

no trespassing, no camping, no hunting, stay off the levee.

Driving along, don't see much, I had hoped, but about to give up.

Make a turn around and stand on the shoulder, glass the field:

flat farmland — fallow — flooded with water —

full of birds. Scanning the farther sections

hundreds of sandhill cranes are pacing — then,

those gurgling sandhill crane calls are coming out of the sky

in threes, twos, fives, from all directions,

circling, counter-spinning, higher and lower,

big silver bodies, long necks, dab of red on the head,

chaotic, leaderless, harmonic, playful — what are they doing?

Splendidly nowhere thousands

And back to Davis, forty miles, forty minutes

shivering to remember            what's going on

just a few miles west of the 5:

in the wetlands, in the ongoing elder          what you might call,

really
the real,     world.